IBM Tops Oracle, Microsoft in Database Market Share War

by Alex Woodie

Gartner's Dataquest unit released its study of the 2001 database management systems market last week, and the results are more positive for IBM than they are for the industry as a whole. According to Gartner Dataquest's numbers, IBM increased its share of the database market from 33.7 percent to 34.7 percent, topping rival database vendor Oracle, whose market share dropped from 34.1 percent in 2000 to 32 percent in 2001.

IBM's 2001 acquisition of Informix was the key to Big Blue's rise to the top of the database market. While sales of the Informix database accounted for only $264 million last year, it was enough to put IBM over the top with a total revenue figure for 2001 of $3.06 billion. Oracle, the number-two database vendor, recorded $2.83 billion in database sales last year, according to Gartner Dataquest.

The overall database market increased by only 1.4 percent last year, to $8.8 billion. The number-three database vendor, Microsoft, saw the biggest increase in sales last year out of all the database vendors. Revenue from sales of Microsoft databases, including SQL Server, grew about $220 million last year and pushed the company's market share from 14 percent to 16.3 percent.

The Windows database market accounted for about $2.5 billion of the $8.8 billion database market. SQL Server had just under 40 percent of this Windows database market compared to rival Oracle's 35.5 percent share. IBM, including the Windows versions of the Informix databases, accounted for 20.7 percent of the Windows database market, up a smidgen from last year. However, Oracle still has more than 63 percent of the Unix database market locked up, and that market accounted for about $3 billion in sales. IBM has just under 25 percent of the Unix database market, and gets close to 60 percent of its database sales on IBM mainframe and OS/400 platforms. IBM is seeing growth in Unix and Windows, but its power base really comes from these accounts--and so do the profits that allow it to undercut rivals on database pricing and keep making big investments in database technologies. As long as the zSeries and iSeries markets hold up, IBM will be able to continue with its current strategy and be a thorn in both Microsoft's and Oracle's side.